Will the Bradley-Marquez winner face Pacquiao again?

By Chris Williams: This Saturday’s fight between WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley (30-0, 12 KO’s) and Juan Manuel Marquez (55-6-1, 40 KO’s) will have the option to face Filipino fighter Manny Pacquiao for a much bigger payday than what they’ll be getting this Saturday against each other.

Marquez has already said that he’s content with his knockout win over Pacquiao from last December, and that he doesn’t feel the need to fight him again. However, Marquez will have few offers for big money fights after this Saturday’s fight unless he does fight Pacquiao.

Bouts against other Top Rank fighters Brandon Rios and Mike Alvarado. There really isn’t much to offer in Top Rank’s stable for Marquez other than fighting Pacquiao. If he’s content on facing Rios and Alvarado 1 or 2 times, then that’s a possibility but those fights pale in comparison to Marquez fighting the likes of Floyd Mayweather Jr., Saul “Canelo” Alvarez or even Adrien Broner.

Marquez obviously won’t get those fights being with Top Rank, but he can face Pacquiao again and that’s a fight that fans would like to see. Marquez is obviously burnt out on facing Pacquiao over and over again, because he’s been on the receiving ends of 3 controversial decisions in fights that many people felt he should have won.

Without question Bradley will opt to face Pacquiao if he gets past Marquez on Saturday. Pacquiao is Bradley’s only real option for a big payday because he’s in the same boat as Marquez is with unable to fight the big stars Canelo and Mayweather.

Bradley can either fight Pacquiao or he’ll have to be satisfied facing Alvarado or Rios. Those aren’t really big fights and it’ll be laughable if they’re made into PPV bouts.

You can only guess what this Saturday’s PPV numbers will be for the Bradley-Marquez fight on HBO. I think they’ll be lucky if they can bring in 100,000, because I don’t know of too many people that are excited about that fight. If it was on regular HBO, it would do decent numbers, but asking boxing fans to pay to see it could very well end up with disastrous numbers that may make Bradley and Marquez’s heads spin.